


Resplendent

by Louffox



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussing beauty and the past, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Makeup, Post-Ancient Rome, Scars, Slice of Life, no beta we die like men, they're married, you can pry that from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: Oscar Wilde has to face what he's been given and had taken away.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Resplendent

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE THESE TWO

Oscar sat in front of a mirror.

He leaned in close, staring into the eyes that looked back. He tried to imagine himself a stranger. Tried to understand what others saw when they looked at him. What did the local Japanese folk see? What did Barnes or Carter see? What did Zolf see?

Sometimes when he did this, he could take confidence in his face. His appearance was his security, for he knew, objectively, he was attractive. If the sheer number of testimonies didn't absolutely prove this, the wide variability of the testimony-givers did. Beings of all races, classes, genders and orientations, he'd had them all.

He'd… had… past tense.

His eyes were flecked with color. This close, he could see the starbursts of layered color around his pupil, smattered with coppers and golds, sparkling hues of precious metals. An exploding universe around the plummeting black depths of that disk. That's where he looked out from. That's where he lived.

His eyes didn't sparkle like they sometimes did. The skin around them was bruise blue and soft, swollen and sagging. He could see all the pores around his nostrils and on his nose, and his lips were dry and thin. There were lines between his brows and on his forehead. And half of his mouth was bent down in a permanent look of disdain.

That scar.

He could work with this. He could fix it.

A tiny jar of concealer, the really good stuff. Pale like him. He stuck his finger in and began blotting it on, starting at the top edge of the scar. Dabbing, applying it thickly, he went down the line of it, then went back up to feather the edges of the concealer line. This finished, he took a small sponge and began blotting it with a patting motion, trying to not smudge it or do anything that would thin up the layer to show the mark beneath.

As he worked, he relaxed into the ritual of it. It was simple and repetitive motion, and put him at a distance from his body. He didn't feel so personally upset about the marks and flaws. He saw them as things to do. Thin out that edge. Add a bit more here. Powder. A little more. That spot needs work. He could focus on that, the work, the task at hand, as if it weren't his face and was just an art piece he was tidying.

He went back for more concealer to start working under his eyes, and then selected a light translucent powder to finish and set the concealer with. That went on with a different sponge, but was still patted down. He used a large fluffy brush to go over his face once to remove the excess powder. Sat back and studied it for a moment.

Okay. His eyes still looked puffy. He could use some ice. His gaze flicked to the scar.

His hands came down on the table hard, loud, and then he swung his arm and sent it all crashing to the floor. It was satisfying for only an instant before the anger and disgust rushed back in. He folded his arms and dropped his face down onto them, seized by deep gasping breaths, and pressed his head further into his elbows. He half wished he could just smother himself. Every breath was fury, charged with helpless rage at the world, at himself. Everything was ruined. He didn't know when or how it had all gone so wrong. The scream in his chest would never make it go back to the way it was, even if he did figure out how to release it.

The world was ugly. He was ugly. There was nothing. It was all just- garbage, a mess, marred and marked, filthy, ruined, trash, useless, helpless scarred and worthless- just  _ shit _ , everything, and he was shit too.

"Wilde? What was that?"

He hadn't even heard the door open. It had been drowned out by the noise the inside of his head was making.

"Oh. What happened? Are you alright?"

_ Yes. Go away. _

He shook his head, still with his face buried in his arms.

"Oscar. It's alright if you can't talk right now. I'm just gonna sit right here, okay? Nod if you're okay with me touching you."

He hesitated, then nodded. A hand gently folded over his elbow, and the noise in his head quieted for a moment.  _ Not shoulders. Thoughtful _ . He had never outright said it, but he never liked having an arm over his shoulders, or a hand on his shoulders or back. It never felt comforting, it felt heavy. Controlling. The weight of an arm over his shoulders always felt like it wanted to force him to hunch, to buckle and crumple. He had never told anyone that, but Zolf, for all his frankness and lonesome sailor persona, had apparently read something at some point, and always found other gestures to express comfort and love.

It was a temporary respite. He still felt like the scream in his chest was going to kill him.

Zolf wasn't speaking, just sitting or standing nearby, his hand on his elbow. Wilde couldn't pick his head up to look.

Eventually, he was controlling his own breathing again, and the words and fury and noise was just that. It was still so loud in his head, but the loudness was a single source- his air.

"I just want things to go back to the way they were," he finally said into his arms.

"Go back?”

He nodded.

“Oscar… but if you go back, then you’ll just end up here again, wouldn’t you?” The hand on his elbow was gently petting his arm. “I don’t want to go back. Not for anything. Cause that means you’ve got to go through all that, and you’d just get here eventually. And stuff wasn’t that good back then- riots, confusion, all harlequins against meritocrats, and just cause the cult wasn’t visible didn’t mean it weren’t doing bad stuff underground. I don’t think going back would help anything. I don’t think that’s the answers.

“I mean, stuff is shitty now. I get it. And you don’t want to be right now, so going back seems like the answer, yeah? Except we’ve got something better. Way I see it, we’ve got another option. We can go forward.”

Wilde could feel he’d crouched beside him, and without lifting his head, slid sideways so he could bury his face in Zolf’s open arms instead of on the table. Zolf supported him without hesitation, letting him tuck his head into his chest and wrapping his arms around him, making the world small and safe. 

“Everything is all changing, and it’s scary, and it hurts- change  _ hurts _ \- and I’ve not got my legs, and you’ve lost stuff too, but going back means going through that loss again, yeah? We gotta go forward and see what’s coming next. What we’re gonna do now, what’s gonna come and replace all the stuff we’ve lost. We’ve survived so much and come so far and I’m not wasting all I’ve pushed through by going back.”

“My face,” he managed to rasp past the lump still heavy and thick in his throat. “But- I was perfect. I was beautiful.”

“I still think you’re beautiful. It’s okay if you don’t believe that right now- I’ll believe it enough for the both of us.  _ Beautiful _ ,” he scoffed, reaching for something behind Oscar, shuffling slightly. “By who’s standards? What a crock. I think you’re beyond all that.”

Oscar sat up a bit, looking down at him, studying his eyes and trying to make himself feel the sincerity and hope that the sailor carried so bright and strong within him. Zolf cupped his chin, and he leaned into his hand, closing his eyes, unable to meet his gaze for a moment longer, intense and certain as it was.

“Beautiful,” he said again, with the same level of dismissal and derision. “Any idiot can be beautiful.”

Something brushed Oscar’s face, and he opened his eyes reflexively. Zolf was looking at him with reverence now, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. He was holding a small brush, and the tip glittered wetly.

“You’re  _ resplendent _ .”

He turned and looked at himself in the mirror. Zolf had painted a single line of gold down his face. Transforming his scar into light and color, metallic and bold.

He didn’t look beautiful. Better than that. Different. 

_ Resplendent. _

“Kintsugi,” he said with a small laugh. Zolf’s brows furrowed. “It’s the Japanese art of filling cracks in teapots and pottery with gold. It enhances it and makes it stronger, prettier. So the older and more damaged a piece gets, the more value and splendor it has.”

“Of course they’ve got some art for that. Can’t imagine it makes it stronger. Gold is soft and weak. People, now that’s hardy unbreakable shit. You especially. Scar tissue is rugged. It's the person coming back stronger.”

Oscar smiled at him in the mirror. It wasn’t his bedroom smile, or his arrogant smile, or his scathing and pitying smile. It was a new smile.

“Alright then. No going back.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Lho's drawing of Oscar in his resplendent gold suit (it's definitely not banana yellow) (but banana suit, think of the innuendos) (Wilde definitely is)
> 
> quick, give me prompts before Alex takes away our poet/pirate husbands or does something terrible to them


End file.
